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Tue Nov 20 12:49:16 GMT 2007

I too agree with you.  I work in a surburban Chicago Trauma Center and the violence that I see on a daily basis at work is very frustrating.  The Churches and Cease Fire ( an organization of ex-gang members that talk to victims about retaliation) are the only groups you hear talking about peace.  Younger and younger victims are entering our department as well as individuals who have been shot, stabbed, beat, etc more than once.  It makes me think that Trauma is a chronic illness and should be treated like diabetes and heart disease.  

  We know this administration is focused on "The War" in Iraq...so our hope lies with any new incoming adminstration.  I also contact my legislators (all the time) so they know where I stand and what I want from them.  We have the power, we all need to vote.  Emergency/Trauma Nurses, Doctors need to be not only a voice for our patients but for our communities and the public in which we serve.

  Sorry for being on a soapbox...I know we all pretty much feel the same.

  Thanks,

  Lorri

bensonblues at comcast.net wrote:
  When my garbage disposal unit gets jammed up on a Guiness bottle cap, I dislodge the cap from the metal teeth of the beast and push the red reset button on the bottom of the unit to get things going again. In this case, I'd like to push the reset button and talk about trauma and it's relevence, as if you thought one could not be found, to that last rather nasty thread (for which many of you need to do some apologizing to each other for, by the way).

Last Tuesday, I interviewed a candidate for my emergency medicine residency program in the resuscitation room because it is usually quiet in there in the morning. Before I concluded my interview, the four-bed unit was almost filled with one GSW to the chest (essentially DOA), another GSW to the tib-fib with an ugly fracture, and a bradypneic overdose. The applicant asked me if it was always like this, and I told her no, it usually didn't start to get busy until around noon. I think we see more action in Detroit then they do in Baghdad, at least that is what the returning vets who work here tell me.

>From my point of view, the people of the US seem to care more about what is happening in Iraq than they do one of their own cities. We have a severe unemployment problem in Detroit which has contributed, over the last few years, to the problems in the city in general. And, we are feeling neglected. Yesterday, CNN reported my beautiful city as the most violent in the country. Then St. Louis, then Flint, MI. My state isn't doing so well in the violent crime statistics area. Gas station owners are even shooting and killing each other over prices. The people doing the killing, if one may reasonably conclude, do not believe in the Christian concept of God. If they did, they would not be doing the killing. Thou Shalt Not Kill. Our problem in Detroit isn't religion - it is the lack of it.

If trauma prevention is important to a society, then attention must be given to the root cause of the violence. In Detroit, ignorance looms big. The current leadership has not been as successful as his predecessor in controlling the drug trade, robbery, and murder. Poor big-scale politics. The city has a long history of corruption and mismanagement dating back to the '70's. Many public schools remain dangerous, and education is a struggle for those who seek it. Violence and drugs have become a way of life for innercity children and the result is reckless abandon and hate, just as the madrasa's teach hate in parts of the Middle East. Both are dangerous planetary cancers which demand a cure, lest the price be paid.

Trauma prevention depends upon crime prevention. Crime prevention is something that the government is suppose to do, usually. But, in the City of Detroit, the churches do it better. Pastors in Detroit reach out to the people of their community and do more to prevention violent crime than can be measured. The churches preach a philosophy of mutual respect for life and property, and condone the disrespect of fellow man. You can argue with me all you want to and call me names, but I know this to be true: If there were no churches in the city, the area would become a killing field within a decade.

Our neihborhood churches are the major trauma prevention organizations within our city. And, they are "wrapped in the American flag and carrying a cross and a Bible."

DB
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